Where exactly has the breakthrough occurred? China's self-produced natural gas has surged, and it will rank third globally in five years!
Recently, the "14th Five-Year Plan Development Achievements Report of China's Oil and Gas Industry" released a set of hard data: by 2030, China's annual natural gas production will reach 300 billion cubic meters. What does this mean? Simply put, according to the current global natural gas production ranking, only the United States and Russia can consistently exceed 300 billion cubic meters. This means that if the goal is achieved as scheduled, China will jump to become the third largest natural gas producer in the world within five years.
So where exactly is this "surge" coming from?
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's cumulative proven natural gas geological reserves increased by 7 trillion cubic meters, which is 40% higher than during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. In recent years, exploration technologies for shale gas in the Sichuan Basin, tight gas in the Ordos Basin, and deep gas in the Tarim Basin have continuously broken through. Especially the domesticization and large-scale application of key technologies such as horizontal wells + volume fracturing have turned resources that were once "visible but unextractable" into exploitable reserves.
Secondly, looking at the pace of capacity construction. In recent years, China's natural gas production has continuously set new historical records, and in 2024, it has approached 250 billion cubic meters. To move from 250 billion to 300 billion, it seems like just an additional 50 billion, but considering that the base is already very large, an annual net increase of about 100 billion cubic meters is still required—equivalent to the annual output of a medium-sized gas field.
Currently, the Changqing, Southwest, and Tarim oil and gas areas have become the main production zones. Among them, Changqing Oilfield alone produced more than 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2024, firmly ranking first nationwide. This centralized and scaled development model has greatly improved production efficiency.
Currently, China's natural gas import dependency is still around 40%. If production reaches 300 billion cubic meters, combined with slowing demand growth (due to improved energy efficiency and electrification), future import dependency is expected to significantly decrease, reducing the impact of geopolitical risks on energy supply.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1851471408780316/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.